grumpy_tiger
Trails into Reverie acts as a closure to both the CS and Crossbell games in many ways while incorporating elements from Sky the 3rd.
The story overall is fine, its mostly self contained but uses elements from Cold Steel 4 so it's certainly not something I'd recommend for anyone getting into the series. It had some good moments overall, not as great as some in CS4 but also no where near as low. General criticism might be that some of the elements the series has been there done that. But the pacing is so much better than previous games.
Part of this is due to a semi optional dungeon area that you are relatively free to go to whenever you want. This also acts as a farewell to the engine before Kuro as they throw every character under the sun at you to use along with all the DLC outfits from the previous games which is delightful. Additionally it shares elements from 3rd where you can watch optional side stories that are this games version of doors.
Music is generally good, very much if you like Trails music there's no real reason you wouldn't like it here.
Characters are all the old ones you love. Most of them have their small part to play but generally fade into the background afterwards, though by breaking up the story into three branches it gives the story and characters in them room to breath and feel a bit more impactful than CS4.
The new ones for me there was one character I really enjoyed and the other two I would be fine if they don't return, I don't feel like they brought anything really new and one of their personalities was as exciting as wet cardboard.
At the end Reverie is a good way to wrap everything up going into Kuro and makes me look forward to what the series has in the future.
The story overall is fine, its mostly self contained but uses elements from Cold Steel 4 so it's certainly not something I'd recommend for anyone getting into the series. It had some good moments overall, not as great as some in CS4 but also no where near as low. General criticism might be that some of the elements the series has been there done that. But the pacing is so much better than previous games.
Part of this is due to a semi optional dungeon area that you are relatively free to go to whenever you want. This also acts as a farewell to the engine before Kuro as they throw every character under the sun at you to use along with all the DLC outfits from the previous games which is delightful. Additionally it shares elements from 3rd where you can watch optional side stories that are this games version of doors.
Music is generally good, very much if you like Trails music there's no real reason you wouldn't like it here.
Characters are all the old ones you love. Most of them have their small part to play but generally fade into the background afterwards, though by breaking up the story into three branches it gives the story and characters in them room to breath and feel a bit more impactful than CS4.
The new ones for me there was one character I really enjoyed and the other two I would be fine if they don't return, I don't feel like they brought anything really new and one of their personalities was as exciting as wet cardboard.
At the end Reverie is a good way to wrap everything up going into Kuro and makes me look forward to what the series has in the future.
The King of the Cosmos goes on a bender which destroys the stars and he makes his son clean up the mess which results in the destruction of humanity. And balls, lots of balls. What's not to love?
2023
Feeding my crippling gambling addiction
2024
Dragons Dogma 2 is going to be divisive because there's going to be people that are really going to love the game and people that are going to bounce off of it really hard. It's a game that has a lot of flaws but wears them on the sleeve.
For the good in terms of an organic world, I think it does really pulls it off. The world feels like an actual world that you'd expect to find in a low fantasy type setting with NPCs (mostly pawns though) sprinkled throughout. At first it feels linear but as you unlock other classes/abilities like the mage's levitate you find it's actually pretty expansive, it's just matter of getting over gaps and getting enough vertical.
But while some people are going to love that organic feel, it's also a weakness. Caves in DD2 are well.. just caves. They may have a big enemy or a nice piece of treasure but not always. Ruins are just that, just ruined stone masonry. If you want to contrast it against a game like Elden Ring, Elden Ring doesn't feel like a world you'd expect people to actually live in, but it's got a lot of unique and interesting things to see as a trade off since it isn't beholden to 'make sense'.
Enemies are also part of an issue. There just isn't enough variety and they aren't particularly challenging after a point. A Cyclops is one of the first big enemies you fight, and at first it's fun, climbing on them poking them in the eye. But later in the game, the Cyclops is still the same 2 health bar Cyclops, it might have a bit of armor but ultimately it doesn't prove to be a challenge. After a point the enemies become more annoying since they constantly attack you as you travel around but there's no longer much enjoyment for killing a goblin for the 300th time because some variety of Goblin, Lizard, harpy are what you fight 90% of the time.
Combat though can be fine but it's very class dependent. I found the thief and mystic spearhand the most enjoyable. And some classes are either fairly bland like the sorcerer is just casting/charging spells over and over again and then the trickerster I could write a large rant about how bad that class is in both execution and fun. But as above, combat does get kind of easy so once I was sufficient level it was more a chore.
Story wise it's pretty much an afterthought. There's a huge lack of character personality, motivations, or just character. Empress Nadina who is so important to occupy 1/3 of the cover art is in essentially two quests and does absolutely nothing and isn't interesting at all. This is not a game that you play for the story or really for the characters. That being said the actual character creation is robust and you can make quite a few different looking characters.
TLDR is that it's an experience that will appeal to some more than others but it won't be game of the year. Ultimately it's a better Dragons Dogma but doesn't do much to actually patch the flaws of the first game. Maybe if they do a DLC/Expansion that may help with some of the rougher edges but I don't think it will.
For the good in terms of an organic world, I think it does really pulls it off. The world feels like an actual world that you'd expect to find in a low fantasy type setting with NPCs (mostly pawns though) sprinkled throughout. At first it feels linear but as you unlock other classes/abilities like the mage's levitate you find it's actually pretty expansive, it's just matter of getting over gaps and getting enough vertical.
But while some people are going to love that organic feel, it's also a weakness. Caves in DD2 are well.. just caves. They may have a big enemy or a nice piece of treasure but not always. Ruins are just that, just ruined stone masonry. If you want to contrast it against a game like Elden Ring, Elden Ring doesn't feel like a world you'd expect people to actually live in, but it's got a lot of unique and interesting things to see as a trade off since it isn't beholden to 'make sense'.
Enemies are also part of an issue. There just isn't enough variety and they aren't particularly challenging after a point. A Cyclops is one of the first big enemies you fight, and at first it's fun, climbing on them poking them in the eye. But later in the game, the Cyclops is still the same 2 health bar Cyclops, it might have a bit of armor but ultimately it doesn't prove to be a challenge. After a point the enemies become more annoying since they constantly attack you as you travel around but there's no longer much enjoyment for killing a goblin for the 300th time because some variety of Goblin, Lizard, harpy are what you fight 90% of the time.
Combat though can be fine but it's very class dependent. I found the thief and mystic spearhand the most enjoyable. And some classes are either fairly bland like the sorcerer is just casting/charging spells over and over again and then the trickerster I could write a large rant about how bad that class is in both execution and fun. But as above, combat does get kind of easy so once I was sufficient level it was more a chore.
Story wise it's pretty much an afterthought. There's a huge lack of character personality, motivations, or just character. Empress Nadina who is so important to occupy 1/3 of the cover art is in essentially two quests and does absolutely nothing and isn't interesting at all. This is not a game that you play for the story or really for the characters. That being said the actual character creation is robust and you can make quite a few different looking characters.
TLDR is that it's an experience that will appeal to some more than others but it won't be game of the year. Ultimately it's a better Dragons Dogma but doesn't do much to actually patch the flaws of the first game. Maybe if they do a DLC/Expansion that may help with some of the rougher edges but I don't think it will.
Mechs go pew pew, boom boom. G1 Michigan yells at you. Good times.
I wasn't planning on picking this up but did. Had a pretty good time overall.
To start with the combat is fairly nice, fluid, and very flashy. There's a lot of characters to play with a lot of different styles. You have quick attacking characters, slow but strong characters, range characters, more support types, etc. You do only start out with a handful of characters and they're relatively slow to unlock more for awhile. Also there's no training/test room to try them out in the game that I found.
The battles are typically pretty short if your AI companions are all leveled up equally or you play with actual people. Most battles are only ~5 minutes so you can get through them pretty quickly.
Of course that can sometimes make battles not feel super satisfying since they're not typically very hard. It's not like Monster Hunter where you may spend 20+ minutes killing a new monster and after awhile you get it down to under 10 minutes. The environments in Granblue are pretty much just bland circle arenas so it's quick get in, fight, get out, without anything else to see or do.
There's also not a lot of complexity for both good and bad, some characters are more complex than others but they all have a relatively short ~8 skills and then a basic attack/combo button and a finisher/special button.
Storywise it's fine, it doesn't require you to have played the gacha or watched the anime but it can help. But overall the story is pretty generic anime/power of friendship which some people will enjoy more than others. For me I could take it or leave it.
Overall I think this was a pretty fun action game. There's some Monster Hunter DNA but with a lot of reduced grind and far more casual. But I also found that once I had my preferred character maxed that was about it. You can grind sigils to 'perfect' your build but it doesn't matter much or you can do other characters. So it didn't have the staying power of Monster Hunter for me.
Still I look forward to see what they do in the future or sequel.
To start with the combat is fairly nice, fluid, and very flashy. There's a lot of characters to play with a lot of different styles. You have quick attacking characters, slow but strong characters, range characters, more support types, etc. You do only start out with a handful of characters and they're relatively slow to unlock more for awhile. Also there's no training/test room to try them out in the game that I found.
The battles are typically pretty short if your AI companions are all leveled up equally or you play with actual people. Most battles are only ~5 minutes so you can get through them pretty quickly.
Of course that can sometimes make battles not feel super satisfying since they're not typically very hard. It's not like Monster Hunter where you may spend 20+ minutes killing a new monster and after awhile you get it down to under 10 minutes. The environments in Granblue are pretty much just bland circle arenas so it's quick get in, fight, get out, without anything else to see or do.
There's also not a lot of complexity for both good and bad, some characters are more complex than others but they all have a relatively short ~8 skills and then a basic attack/combo button and a finisher/special button.
Storywise it's fine, it doesn't require you to have played the gacha or watched the anime but it can help. But overall the story is pretty generic anime/power of friendship which some people will enjoy more than others. For me I could take it or leave it.
Overall I think this was a pretty fun action game. There's some Monster Hunter DNA but with a lot of reduced grind and far more casual. But I also found that once I had my preferred character maxed that was about it. You can grind sigils to 'perfect' your build but it doesn't matter much or you can do other characters. So it didn't have the staying power of Monster Hunter for me.
Still I look forward to see what they do in the future or sequel.
2023
Overall a well done indie game with great art style and put together well. Part of the reason it's getting shelved (maybe abandoned) is that it's essentially a bunch of mini and micro games strung together; it just gets a bit repetitive with the main game of diving/gathering fish not being compelling enough. I also wish there was some way to better identify fish or items you need for collections when swimming around. Overall pretty fun for the short term and don't regret trying it out but not something that is able to compete against other games out right now.
2023
I enjoyed the gameplay and story the first time through enough but trying to do more content after about level 60 or trying to get into the seasons wasn't particularly engaging. Probably a get on sale type of game in my opinion. Better than D3 at launch though.
For the actual DLC content, overall it's a lot of what the base game should have been but wasn't. The gigs in the DLC area almost all have some sort of roleplaying element to them that gives them some substance. Even though the gameplay is still largely the same having a bit of actual interactive narrative goes a long way in making them feel better.
The DLC story is fairly good overall with a decent cast of characters. The main quest tries to add some different gameplay elements to change up the pace and some are better executed than others but the main quests felt longer than most of the base game's main story quests.
The way the DLC story content was handled along with the 2.0 update is really what the base game should have been more inline with at launch, but at least it gives hope for the eventual follow up to Cyberpunk.
The DLC story is fairly good overall with a decent cast of characters. The main quest tries to add some different gameplay elements to change up the pace and some are better executed than others but the main quests felt longer than most of the base game's main story quests.
The way the DLC story content was handled along with the 2.0 update is really what the base game should have been more inline with at launch, but at least it gives hope for the eventual follow up to Cyberpunk.
Doom and Warhammer 40K make a pretty good pairing. It has a nice retro aesthetic that does try to capture elements of the 40K which is cool. But the main issue is that, it gets a bit stale after a couple of hours. The enemies and environments start to feel repetitive after a bit. Even though the environment's may be 'new' they're structured pretty similar in their design. There's not much to explore, the secrets are temporary power ups either timed or just for that level and they tend to be just tucked somewhere rather than an exciting reward for exploring. Weapons also didn't feel very unique for the most part, didn't feel like it mattered what I used it was about as effective.
I like the idea behind this, it would be cool to see it expanded and some of the design kinks ironed out, tap into the larger roster of 40K races or lore. It is a game that ultimately is difficult to complete because it doesn't do much to keep your attention with fresh game design or story elements.
I like the idea behind this, it would be cool to see it expanded and some of the design kinks ironed out, tap into the larger roster of 40K races or lore. It is a game that ultimately is difficult to complete because it doesn't do much to keep your attention with fresh game design or story elements.